User Update Problem

[Muses]

The form pulls up as it is suppose to, what I cannot get it to do is actually update the information. If anyone could take a peek and tell me where I am going wrong I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks ahead of time!

#This is the update page for the site.

// Set the page title and include the HTML header.
$page_title = 'Update Personal Information';
include_once ('incl/header.html');
session_start(); // Start a session.

// If no user_id variable exists, redirect the user.
if (!isset($_SESSION['user_id'])) {

header ("Location:  [url]http://[/url]" . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']) . "/index.php");
	ob_end_clean();
	exit();

} else {

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) { // Handle the form.

require_once ('../mysql_connect.php'); // Connect to the database.

$sql="SELECT * FROM user WHERE user_id={$_SESSION['user_id']}";


$query = "UPDATE user SET location=$location , email=$email, homepage=$homepage, biography=$biography, interests=$interests, occupation=$occupation WHERE user_id={$_SESSION['user_id']}";		
			$result = @mysql_query ($query); // Run the query.
			if (mysql_affected_rows() == 1) { // If it ran OK.

		} else { // If it did not run OK.

// Send a message to the error log, if desired.
				$message = '<p>Your information could not be changed due to a system error.</p>'; 

		}		
		mysql_close(); // Close the database connection.

	} 

} // End of the main Update conditional.

// Form begins here.
<form action="<?php echo $SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
<table align=center width=100% border="1" bordercolor="#8080C0">
<tr><td colspan=2 class=title background="img/nav_bg.jpg" align=center valign=middle>
<?php
if (isset($SESSION['user_id'])) {
echo "Update {$_SESSION['username']} Profile";
} else {
echo '';
}
?>
</td></tr>

<tr>
<td>Location:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="location" size="25" maxlength="50" value="<?php if (isset($POST['location'])) echo $POST['location']; ?>" /></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Email Address:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="email" size="40" maxlength="40" value="<?php if (isset($POST['email'])) echo $POST['email']; ?>" /></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td height="47">Homepage:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="homepage" size="50" maxlength="50" value="<?php if (isset($POST['homepage'])) echo $POST['homepage']; ?>" /></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> Biography:</td>
<td><textarea name="biography" cols="50" rows="15" value="<?php if (isset($POST['biography'])) echo $POST['biography']; ?>" /></textarea>
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> Interests:</td>
<td><textarea name="interests" cols="50" rows="5" value="<?php if (isset($POST['interests'])) echo $POST['interests']; ?>" /></textarea>
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td height="47">Occupation:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="homepage" size="50" maxlength="50" value="<?php if (isset($POST['occupation'])) echo $POST['occupation']; ?>" /></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan=2><div align="center"><input type="submit" name="submit" value="Update" /></div></td>
</tr>
</table>

</form><!-- End of Form -->

<?php // Include the HTML footer file.
include_once ('incl/footer.html');
?>

[LarsLai]

hi muses!
for string types you have to use quotation marks around your values:

$query = "UPDATE user SET location='$location' , email='$email', homepage='$homepage', 
biography='$biography', interests='$interests', occupation='$occupation' 
WHERE user_id={$_SESSION['user_id']}";

[Muses]

thank you that at least updated it to the database. Now I have the problem that if nothing is entered in say the location or email (actually any section just used those for reference) part of the form it empties it in the database.

[LarsLai]

there surely is some more straightforward solution for this but if noone knows... you can do this:
checking if its empty and then add it to the query.

$query = "UPDATE user SET ";
if ($location != "")
 $query .= "location='$location' ";
[...]

[Muses]

so I would do this? Assuming the [...] was to continute the string.. if not please alert me!

$query = "UPDATE user SET ";
if ($location != "")
$query .= "location='$location' ";

if ($email != "")
$query .= "email='$email' ";

if ($homepage != "")
$query .= "homepage='$homepage' ";
[...]

so on and so forth?

[LarsLai]

the query has to be valid, so do not forget the commata

$query = "UPDATE user SET "; 
if ($location != "") 
$query .= "location='$location', "; 

if ($email != "") 
$query .= "email='$email', "; 

[...] 

[Muses]

It still clears out the un-updated portions of the form.

Say they change their homepage, it clears out everything but the homepage addition.

Also noticed that when I re-tested the form update that when I filled in homepage and occupation it put the occupation answer in the homepage area of the database table.

Any ideas?